Farmers market and growing food at home might become illegal
by Rady Ananda, Food Freedom
By a vote of 74 to 25, at noon on Dec. 17, the U.S. Senate voted for cloture on S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, which means it must now be voted on in the full Senate within 60 days. All amendments to the controversial food control bill must be completed by that time.
One of S 510’s supporters, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, opposed cloture because modifications to the bill do not reflect its original intent, he said on CSPAN. Chambliss fully supports giving the FDA more power over the US food supply, but is unhappy with the Manager’s Amendment submitted in August.
He objects to the small farm exclusion on the grounds that the $500,000 annual gross revenue limit is an arbitrary number that is too quickly reached by small farms. He called for numerous amendments to the bill as it appears today.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio supports S 510, and called out the statistics by the Centers for Disease Control that report there are 76 million food-borne illnesses a year, with 5,000 resulting in death. What Brown did not say was that the FDA — the very agency further empowered by S 510 — is responsible for the approval of pharmaceutical drugs that result in 100,000 deaths a year.
None of the supporters of S 510 will acknowledge the corrupt nature of the Food and Drug Administration. Monsanto executives now work at the FDA or on President’s Obama’s Food Safety Task Force. What legislators continue to ignore from the public is that we do not support giving federal agencies even more power — especially over something as inherently private as food choices.
None of the legislators will discuss the FDA raids on natural food operations, which sickened no one, while it allowed Wright County Egg to sicken people for decades before finally taking action. Yesterday, Senator Bob Casey informed his Pennsylvania constituents that the $1.6 billion price tag for S 510 will stop food smuggling in the United States. I kid you not: “These provisions add personnel to detect, track and remove smuggled food and call for the development and implementation of strategies to stop food from being smuggled into the United States.” Is food smuggling a problem in the United States? Well, the “biggest food smuggling case in the history of the U.S.” busted wide open in September.
Eleven Chinese and German executives were indicted for bringing in $40 million worth of commercial grade honey over a five-year period, reportedly to avoid paying $80 million in import fees. (No wonder they tried smuggling.)
That amounts to 3 percent of the 1.35 billiondollar honey market over a five-year period.
Since that was the biggest food smuggling bust, food smuggling is not the problem. Clearly. It hardly seems worth it for the U.S. taxpayer to cough up $1.6 billion so the FDA can stop such illegal activities, especially in our current economic recession.
“It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the U.S. is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the U.S.” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by insurvirtue of being produced.”
This is absurd. Food smuggling is not the problem with food safety.
Tainted food comes from monopoly operations in a highly centralized food system. Break up the monopolies and revert to localized food systems to ensure food safety. Let local authorities control local food safety.
Bill 510 will lead end farmer markets, growing food in the backyard
by Mike Adams Natural News
Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.” It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public’s right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer’s markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don’t comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.
“It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” – Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower http://shivchopra.com/?page_id=2.
This tyrannical law puts all food production (yes, even food produced in your own garden) under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. Yep — the very same people running the TSA and its naked body scanner / passenger groping programs.
This law would also give the U.S. government the power to arrest any backyard food producer as a felon (a “smuggler”) for merely growing lettuce and selling it at a local farmer’s market.
It also sells out U.S. sovereignty over our own food supply by ceding to the authority of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Codex Alimentarius. It would criminalize seed saving turning backyard gardeners who save heirloom seeds into common criminals. This is obviously designed to give corporations like Monsanto a monopoly over seeds.
It would create an unreasonable paperwork burden that would put small food producers out of business, resulting in more power over the food supply shifting to large multinational corporations.
